Ironic

We have been fortunate to have a couple of the nicest days we have experienced in Haiti in ten years of travel here. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still plenty warm, but our first two nights have been down right cool. Today has been another day of hurry up and wait. We took off early to run a couple of errands, one being to take a compactor out to the property to ready the floor of our building for concrete. For all who have done equipment rental in the U.S., something very different here is that when one rents equipment here, it comes with an operator! When we made one quick stop after picking up the compactor I was startled to walk past the back of the truck and find a Haitian lodged in the back. I said to Rob, ‘what’s he doing here’? And then he told me. Both he and the engineer were stunned to learn I could rent a piece of equipment without someone from the rental company coming with me. One determination we made on our site visit was there is more leveling to be done for our new tent. When I measured it out for our engineer, there were many wide eyes! In the world of tents, this is not a particularly huge tent, for these Haitians, as well as for me, this is a monster. This tent is 3 times bigger than our current tent in town, it’s going to be amazing. It’s ironic that we find ourselves in a waiting game on customs just like we did our very first trip in all those years ago. Hopefully this is not a complete ditto of that journey. We did have partial success today, our people at the dock took mercy on us and let us into the trailer to pull our food and generators for this trip. We were living off backstock today, some serious improvisation has been going on with our chief cook and bottle maker…my wife! But everyone has been staying very upbeat. This afternoon there was some intense crafting going on with our kids, Krystle is in high demand! Ray played soccer with the boys for a couple hours, he’s getting some serious workouts in! Did I mention he’s the tallest guy in every room he enters! As I type out this blog, the women’s service is in full swing, Beth, Deloris, and Lee are there. Meanwhile back at the orphanage some big soccer game was on TV, I think some local team was playing and there were about 10 of the young guys here. Sean commented it was funny all the ladies were in church and all the guys were here watching soccer! Also, that we must be the only location in town with power on and a TV. The electrical problem in St. Marc remains the same, that is, no power. When we were pulling the food off the trailer a bit ago, I was confused as the generators were pulled off as well. When we got out to the truck and loaded everything, I told Rob my surprise they let him take the generators. He told our contact person he was taking them, that the church needed them, and he was not willing to wait anymore for them! As we walked back through the customs dock, he kept saying ‘hi’ to many people and then would drop this line, ‘they go to my church’. It looks like he owns the dock! I had to chuckle to myself. He went to school with the customs inspectors, the head security folks go to his church, some of the very top customs folks are close friends of Rob’s. The reach of our church community here is vast and far reaching. The stall with the trailer delivery is not a local issue, it’s an attempt to crack down on corruption, it’s a delay tactic to minimize bribery, Robinson said it is a good idea, they just don’t have it working well right now. One thing in our favor is the fact that the dock is full, and a ship is coming in Saturday, they need the dock emptied by then. So hopefully it’s pushed out by tomorrow. It is minimizing what we are going to be able to get done physically on this trip, but one thing I have learned about working in Haiti, if you don’t have patience to deal with the push-back that comes with doing good, don’t get involved here! Haiti has tested my resolve so many times, were it not the great cloud of witnesses around us and this mission, perhaps we would have fainted long ago. As evening descends on another day, I remain consumed with gratefulness. If nothing has changed in this country the last ten years, my consolation prize is that I have. I read through some of my early blogs before we left on this trip. I can see with great clarity I am not the same person I was all those years ago! Time will judge us all, the seasons of life pull us along with ever changing tides that strain us to our very cores, who we are, who we will become. Thank you to all our supporters who pray and team with us financially in this major endeavor. More to come. Blessings to all once more!